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Ekko was a great design.

Pale Pirate··15 votes·1,510 views
http://news.cdn.leagueoflegends.com/public/images/pages/2015/ekko/img/Ekko_Splash_WP.jpg

If you're reading this it means you didn't just downvote without reading. Thank you.

Now I read a thread recently where people were like "who the fuck thought ekko was a good idea?!" "it was GYPSYGORED!!" "GIVE US A PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR YOUR FAILURES!!1!"

Ekko is a lovely design. Unlike most (all?) ap assassins, he can't 100-0 you in 1 second. His ultimate isn't just an "I'm going to click you for 1200 damage and you can do nothing about it". The killy part of the ultimate is fair, as the opponent has to step into it for it to deal damage, and for this reason it feels very satisfying to use it on someone. Laning against him isn't obnoxious. And his haircut is fucking awesome.

"But but for ekko they decided that giving him huge 3 slows, %hp damage, giant speed boosts, dashes, a giant AOE nuke and get out of jail free button, and a giant fucking shield that also acts as a an aoe 2 seconds stun, blinks, waveclear, blah blah blah, I could even make nunu sound broken if I described him like that".

But this isn't what you actually hate, is it? No, what you hate is tank Ekko. Trinity ekko. Sunfire cape ekko. Dead man's ekko. This shitty thing that doesn't die, doesn't let you go, and either CCs you until his team arrives or kill you himself.

Ekko was an impressive and almost successful attempt to create an assassin who can't simply kill you in one rotation. I am certain many of you would love that idea if you heard it for the first time. I think that it would be hard for RIOT to imagine that tank Ekko would be such a huge issue. Please don't go too hard on them for creating him. I loved playing ap Ekko, and the risk of innovating was worth it.

So if you ever see a tank Ekko again, I have just the perfect solution to make him get deleted in front of your screen:

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-rage-quit-31.png

-peace

29 Comments

Terminus Edge5 votes

The reason tanky Ekko is a thing is because they made a kit for a bruiser and labeled it as an assassin.

Ekko's much closer in design to Rumble than he is to any assassin.

Dengeden1 votes

His passive in conjunction with his abilities 100-0s you if he's full AP. Problem is simply that his passive alone makes him an excellent fighter.

Spoofghoul4 votes

There are 2 things which make tank assassins work

Base damage & mastery damage Utility & cc

What makes them asinine though is the shit in their kit which makes them hard to kill like any other assassin imagine Nautilus with blinks dashes & reset/untargetable button with some nice additional % damage to boot. He would be considered toxic too if he had all that.

How to kill tank assassins Step 1 remove all their %hp damage Step 2 lower the base damage on spammables Step 3 if necessary, notice how i say necessary, give them higher ap/ad scalings to compensate, but only if necessary because we dont need assassin bursting for 10k damage . . . Step 4 reduce their cc to a minimum, just enough to land their rotation i dont care if its hard. Step 5 compensate with some unique utility so they aren't as feast or famine, utility doesn't have to be CC and it doesn't have to be a lot just something unique but helpful to the team.

Zerenza2 votes

Tank akali has none of those and it still worked, it can still work, the reason is the mastery's and itemizations.

Trinity force and Sunfire Cape are common abuses. Ferver and Grasp are also very common abuses(Tank Ekko uses Grasp+Tri-Force+Sunfire, akali simply use Grasp and Sunfire), Yasuo used Tri-Force and Fervor.

The problem isn't the champion, in season 5 this never happened with any assassin(to my knowledge) it's simply the mastery's and build paths that caused it, none of the core parts of their kits did.

Yes Ekko does have a lot of CC but you have to remember that it's all skilshots, the damage isn't actually that high because of the nerfs and NO ONE is paying any attention to his almost lowest winrate in the entirety of league in every one of his roles, he isn't that bad and he's balanced, tank ekko isn't broken at all, people are just playing it because they can't play AP ekko cause it's to difficult, if anything the winrates are showing tank ekko is actually making him worse, not better.

Lastly, Ekko play's better as a bruiser anyway, his kit screams it and the fact he can't 100-0 you is a testament to that he has all the core components of a bruiser, little bit of CC, high damage but it's all avoidable and there's counterplay and mobility. All bruiser's have these core components, RIven, FIora, Vi, Pantheon even Renekton. They all have those core components, even if not all of them have the exact same amount in one core area, they all have those components, and ekko has them too, he is a bruisre and he's supposed to be a semi-tanky diver. If you complain about him, complain about them too because they roughly all build the same and if they're behind, guess what? They go full tank and can still kill any squishy in the game.

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

Yes Ekko does have a lot of CC but you have to remember that it's all skilshots, the damage isn't actually that high because of the nerfs

A skillshot is only a skillshot if it takes skill to land. Ekko has one LINESHOT - his Q - and its one of the easiest to land with a massive AoE. The damage might not be very high, but hes sticky. extremely. sticky. Hes like black on tar; you cant get rid of it once its there. the reason why tank ekko works at all and why fighter ekko doesnt but can is because he is both ridiculously sticky AND extremely mobile. Whats more, Riot WANTS ekko to be an assassin, not a fighter and not a tank. just like nidalee and kassadin, they want his playstyle to be something very specific. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/xP2hALOY-can-i-pitch-an-ekko-rework-please Is a rework proposal that takes AWAY a majority of the stick and makes his mobility less stifling by adding conditions to when it may be used. It retains his W, which is fine without the massive amount of stick, and his ultimate which is also fine without the massive amount of stick and promotes heavy AP playstyles by increasing AP ratios on his passive and E, both of which are his bread and butter and should remain.

If ekko had never been labeled an assassin, he would be an AP fighter. If he were an AP fighter, we would be fine with an off-tank build and his damage would suffer while retaining his mobility.

Zerenza3 votes

Ekko's Q moves extremely slowly, he usually has to predict where your going to go before throwing it out because if he throws it where you are he'll miss by a mile, His W is probably one of the hardest skillshots to land, incase you didn't know because i don't think you've played ekko, you have to predict where both you AND your opponent will be 2.5 seconds after you cast, he actually casts it 2 seconds before you ever get to see that he did, he also has a very small indicator for when he uses it and it makes a sound (that's how you avoid it when laning against him) and don't even get me started on his R, do you know how difficult it is to constantly remember where you were 4 seconds ago? It's a skillshot, he can't just press it and it immidiately hits you, nononono that isn't how it works, he actually is keeping track of where he is during the fight with you. If you get hit by ANY of his abilities it's your fault.

If you read my full comment i stated that he plays better as a Bruiser, because his kit literally has every tool that a bruiser does. No one complains about the bruiser's though, but they can still one shot you, they can still stick to you, it's how a bruiser is supposed to work. They stick to you, and they hurt you, almost every bruiser has extremely good mobility just look at Riven and Renekton or FIora and VI. All of them have atleast one dash, all of them have really high damage and all of them have AT LEAST one CC ability, riven has 2, vi has 2. But no one complains about them sticking to you like glue with their dashes, they only complain about the 46% winrate ekko. Get the fuck out of here and stop crying about him, learn to play against him.

łnśane3 votes

{quoted}

Ekko's Q moves extremely slowly, he usually has to predict where your going to go before throwing it out because if he throws it where you are he'll miss by a mile, His W is probably one of the hardest skillshots to land, incase you didn't know because i don't think you've played ekko, you have to predict where both you AND your opponent will be 2.5 seconds after you cast, he actually casts it 2 seconds before you ever get to see that he did, he also has a very small indicator for when he uses it and it makes a sound (that's how you avoid it when laning against him) and don't even get me started on his R, do you know how difficult it is to constantly remember where you were 4 seconds ago? It's a skillshot, he can't just press it and it immidiately hits you, nononono that isn't how it works, he actually is keeping track of where he is during the fight with you. If you get hit by ANY of his abilities it's your fault.

If you read my full comment i stated that he plays better as a Bruiser, because his kit literally has every tool that a bruiser does. No one complains about the bruiser's though, but they can still one shot you, they can still stick to you, it's how a bruiser is supposed to work. They stick to you, and they hurt you, almost every bruiser has extremely good mobility just look at Riven and Renekton or FIora and VI. All of them have atleast one dash, all of them have really high damage and all of them have AT LEAST one CC ability, riven has 2, vi has 2. But no one complains about them sticking to you like glue with their dashes, they only complain about the 46% winrate ekko. Get the fuck out of here and stop crying about him, learn to play against him.

Finally someone who gets Ekko, after all that bitching whining I finally found someone who understand how Ekko works!

RogueWill3 votes

Season 5 there was a short instance with TanKarinaKatarina and Tankali Akali that were reduced by giving them more incentives to go AP and reduced their bases. Now with this season is harder to balance since there are free sources of damage coming from everywhere to compensate.

Second I believe at this point Ekko should receive the Diana treatment, which mean stop trying to balance him around the role that riot "intended" and instead balance him around the role that players use it the most. He doesn't work as a skirmisher assassin, the concept was good but didn't work so just move on. Diana is now balanced as an AP assasin laner instead of the AP skirmisher jungler that she was intended for, similarly Lulu is balanced around her solo lanes and not quite on her support role (which ended up being her weakest one currently), to lesser extend zyra is balanced as support even though she was intended as a solo control mage like viktor or orianna. Just give up on his intended role before you render him completely useless and balance him around the role that he fulfill the best.

Zerenza1 votes

I am all for having him go full Bruiser instead because i play him that way anyway, i think it's his best build path for multiple reasons but the main one is his kit just has the tools of a bruiser and he does have trouble bursting people anyway.

I also did state that i blame the mastery's ekko takes as a tank and the build path (tri-force+Grasp/Ferfor is just so good)

Dengeden1 votes

{quoted}

There are 2 things which make tank assassins work

Base damage & mastery damage

How2upvotes.

What makes them asinine though is the shit in their kit which makes them hard to kill like any other assassin imagine Nautilus with blinks dashes & reset/untargetable button with some nice additional % damage to boot. He would be considered toxic too if he had all that.

What would he miss in exchange for that mobility and untargetability? Every champion would be considered toxic if they got random effects added to their abilities.

How to kill tank assassins

Why would you? All they are are extremely sticky champions that wittle you down over an extremely extended period of time. What's wrong with that?

Step 1 remove all their %hp damage

Reducing their glascannon version to feast or famine, as all it would take to counter a not-fed version would be an equally farmed tank.

Step 2 lower the base damage on spammables

Making their early game universally horrible and granting an automatic advantage for the enemy to abuse.

Step 4 reduce their cc to a minimum, just enough to land their rotation i dont care if its hard.

Which makes their rotations quicker which is another way of saying the window in which they burst you is shorter.

Step 5 compensate with some unique utility so they aren't as feast or famine, utility doesn't have to be CC and it doesn't have to be a lot just something unique but helpful to the team.

A shield, a heal and a speedbuff are all I can think of in terms of utility. Remind you of anyone?

Blkninjar871 votes

Ekkos execute isn't making him broken it's literally his passive and his R. Tank ekko works cause he slows u down, and speedhimself up while taking shit tons of dmg. IF u try to attack him he runs away, if u dont run he tosses his easy bake stun on ur face, if u try to run away he E's there's no answer to his nonsense

Zerenza1 votes

Here's one, dodge. His W is not easy, he has a 2.5 second delay on it before he can even stun you, if you hear him activate it(yes it has a sound) then run away from your current position, if you see him activate it, yes it has a visual indicate as well, then do the same. It's like you guys literally stand in one place and let him get his full rotation on you, and do you know how hard it is to constantly remember where you were 4 seconds ago? Because that's his R.

Jinzo Torrance3 votes

Honestly no, it was a pretty bad idea. What assassin would to like to whittle you down while you're being CCed? Why an assassin should need this much CC and lower damage?

An assassin should take out high priority targets instantly (or pretty fast) not take 3 seconds of him CCing you with his variety of CC while hitting you with his spells doing no damage until he hits you 3 times, he will obviously be played as a Tank, abusing his CC, mobility of his E and the %heal of his ultimate.

It was a failed experiment just like Galio and Tahm, Riot didn't actually analyze their kit to see them being bad or just abused. Hope they stop before we see another abonimation.

Pale Pirate2 votes

Have you ever played first person shooters? There are games like cs go and counter strike, where whoever sees the other guy first usually wins, and there's TF2. TF2 players looks down on the others, because at their game you can't kill as fast. meaning there is room for counterplay and actual skill to appear.

Imagine I am standing at a bush as Leblanc. I see gosu passing nearby as Vayne. To everybody's shock, I instantly kill him and the fact that he is one of the best Vaynes in the world doesn't have the chance to be shown. On the other hand, if I had a Zed he would likely still 1 vs 1 me and kill me. Why should I be able to beat Gosu as Leblanc but not as Zed? Shouldn't I need something more than a bush to be able to 1 vs 1 as if he were bronze?

dominusx2 votes

that's just about what i did and got banned. works for your sanity but not your wallet. but you cant have it all now can you!

Schàdenfreude1 votes

Hey man, I mean it works perfectly.

dominusx1 votes

i know! leaving the game once you see tank ekko is the best way of dealing with him. playing Garen coming close second

Pale Pirate1 votes

Heyyy. I was just joking. Sorry for your account :C

dominusx2 votes

i wasnt joking hehe dont be i was a toxic duchebag after my tilt and ruined a lot of game got what i deserved. and everytime i logged in after my ban i got msg's about people getting punished so the people that made me tilt got punished aswell so i'm happy i guess!

Enloct2 votes

{quoted} But but for ekko they decided that giving him huge 3 slows, %hp damage, giant speed boosts, dashes, a giant AOE nuke and get out of jail free button, and a giant fucking shield that also acts as a an aoe 2 seconds stun, blinks, waveclear, blah blah blah, I could even make nunu sound broken if I described him like that".

But this isn't what you actually hate, is it? No, what you hate is tank Ekko. Trinity ekko. Sunfire cape ekko. Dead man's ekko. This shitty thing that doesn't die, doesn't let you go, and either CCs you until his team arrives or kill you himself.

Except all of that shit is what makes tank Ekko work. Ekko doesn't need any damage in his kit because Riot rammed more utility than any support has ever gotten in his kit, making him function just fine without having damage. Listing all the shit in a champion's kit makes anyone sound good...unless you aren't retarded. What matters in a kit is the CC and movement skills. Of which Ekko is insanely overloaded.

Ekko was an impressive and almost successful attempt to create an assassin who can't simply kill you in one rotation.

Except he doesn't function as an assassin then. 1 shotting in general is crappy gameplay and bad design, but he is not and never was an assassin. Ekko is basically a mage skirmisher, which everyone builds as bruisers because skirmisher isn't actually a thing. The result is a hyper-mobile juggernaut, in other words, an overpowered champion with no real weaknesses.

The caveat to all of this is that Ekko wouldn't actually work with 0 damage. He works because he doesn't need damage in his kit. Keystones, items, and other sources of non-scaling damage are what makes him relevant, and that's a completely different mess Riot needs to sort out. So is Ekko a good design? It's hard to say. If you call the items/masteries good, then no. If not, then possibly yes. These things are only a problem when they coexist. In the context of the game, as it is now, though, he's awful.

hhaavviikk2 votes

the reason AP ekko as an assassin doesn't work is because of lifesteal, ADC's can gain several hundreds of health back while ekko is wating for his Q/R to hit the enemy, assassins need to instantly kill ADC because of how OP lifesteal is.

Sona x Rubick1 votes

they should just have made his CC stronger with AP.

Frius1 votes

black kancer

THE RlVER KlNG1 votes

The thing is AP Ekko is just as cancer because Riot has been compensating him for literally every Tankko nerf. His massive Qs keeps you way back from the minion wave because if he lands it just once he dashes onto you for a metric fuckton of damage. With practically nonexistent mana costs and low coodowns he can freely do this all laning phase and you can never agress on him due to his safety. Any incarnation of Ekko is frustrating to play against because he is overloaded and hits like a truck, although some more than others.

agbudar1 votes

that moment an ekko main blatantly tells you that rage quitting is the best option to deal with tank ekko.

i get it your an ap ekko but still

the irony is over 9000 edit: i didn't downvote you for the title.

i Downvoted you for the point you were making

  1. his retarded amounts of CC which make even utility tanks like Leona Nautilus cry for their money.
  2. the fact that he has a garantueed way to kill you unless you abuse some stupid one trick pony mechanic.
  3. the fact that tank ekko HAS 2 ESCAPES on a low ass cooldown which also function as a re engage killing tool.
  4. the fact that he has 2 blinks IN 1 FUKKIN SKILL and the same skill has health % damage on top of it all

and you tell us that the best way is to just rage quit if we ever meet an ekko. this is a neatly wrapped up insult to any intelligence people have put into pointing out how broken ekko really is. thats what your getting downvoted for.

now i get whats going on at riot. ekko is basically zed 2.0 zed and yas were/are still allowed also to bring waay to much to the table it just happens that ekko is their new favor child.

have you noticed how its always damage heavy flashy melee's that get the favor of the doubt?

olaf had 1 lcs and he got DESTROYED in the next patch. (and please dont tell me he was broken everyone knew he was) same for urgot

Dengeden1 votes

I'm not sure I agree the way he gets tankier the more AP he builds (kinda) and the way he spams the crap out of his Q and W during laning phase is something I could call good design but you make some valid points.

Astôlfo1 votes

Ekko's not like an assassin in the first place.

Also, I generally agree with all of what you said except one point.

You're implying AP assassins 100-0'ing/deleting/erasing people instantly with one combo for like 1200+ damage is bad design. It's not. It's perfectly fine.

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

He's designed like he belongs in another game; too overloaded & powerful not to be troublesome in pvp.

Azolaun1 votes

I love Ekko design however his kit could be abused since even if your a tank your still really useful thanks to cc, utility, and lots of fancy moves. I build Ekko AP all the time and is the fun way.

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